More UI magic maybe?

mahmoud_2

Hey there,

So I've been using SW for more than 5 years now. I love how the icons are big, indicative and generally how everything is just beautifully made. 
Recently got into ProE. It looks really vague and characterless to me. Small icons. Small sketch button. Just very not intuitive. 

Reflecting back to OS, I like the clean bright UI. Yet I still believe we need more magic. More indicative pretty icons. And more structure overall. like the feature tree looks very bland and it just feels like I'm here! I'm not trying to communicate anything or tell you anything. Like you have to dig deeper and really focus your eyes there to make sense of what it means. 

like that dialog that opens when you try to make a feature also same comment; very un-communicative! Very little color usage and very little icons! I believe we are all visual people in a way or another. Specially when you're doing CAD your mind imagination has to be on fire. When you switch me to READ things it just gets me out of the mood!

just some thoughts I had anyway... 
What do you guys think?

EDIT: how about giving the ability to change the rotate controls as well?? Like switch to SW mode where you use your scroll click to manipulate the view instead of right click??

kinsleymark

It's interesting to see how different people can view and react to the same things. One of the main things that draws me to Onshape IS the UI. I love that the icons are very clean, monochromatic, and bold. They communicate very clearly to me, but visually "hide" into the background when I'm working on a model. I think the overall UI is great and a nice contrast to the messy, colorful, overwhelming UI of Fusion360.
However, I completely agree and would like to see a bit more visual information added to the feature tree (and dialogue boxes). I believe this has been discussed in other topics, but there should be a way to quickly see what the different types of features are (simple, clean icons and maybe even a bit of color coding?).

3dcad

I like it the current way also except for feature tree. I think one of OnS achievements is that you can do cad on chromebooks, laptops, laptabs or any flipflop tubtabs that has webgl browser and network connection. Screens are from few inch up.

Having big flashy icons in small screen isn't that productive and the best of Ons is that you can work with big office monitor, continue with iPad and finish with your wife's laptop - and you have the same simple UI all the time.

mahmoud_2

Mark_Kinsley said:

It's interesting to see how different people can view and react to the same things. One of the main things that draws me to Onshape IS the UI. I love that the icons are very clean, monochromatic, and bold. They communicate very clearly to me, but visually "hide" into the background when I'm working on a model. I think the overall UI is great and a nice contrast to the messy, colorful, overwhelming UI of Fusion360.
However, I completely agree and would like to see a bit more visual information added to the feature tree (and dialogue boxes). I believe this has been discussed in other topics, but there should be a way to quickly see what the different types of features are (simple, clean icons and maybe even a bit of color coding?).

I totally agree with how clean the UI is. I like it that way. Reflecting back just now, you have a point about how it all fades in the background. But my major point here is communication... 
I agree with you it should be kept clean and monochromatic for the most part. I'm not asking for more colors. I'm asking for more communication.

3dcad said:

I like it the current way also except for feature tree. I think one of OnS achievements is that you can do cad on chromebooks, laptops, laptabs or any flipflop tubtabs that has webgl browser and network connection. Screens are from few inch up.

Having big flashy icons in small screen isn't that productive and the best of Ons is that you can work with big office monitor, continue with iPad and finish with your wife's laptop - and you have the same simple UI all the time.

I believe this could be solved with using adaptive styles and different icons sizes based on the current device resolution and screen size. There is a technical term for that in Web-dev community but I forgot it.

I wonder why this is not getting much traction with OnS employees like usual. I hope they are laughing while reading this and thinking that I'll be surprised very soon!  

3dcad

I think term would be responsive in web dev. In normal website it's easier to pop things in different shapes and positions according to screen size. For example change vertical menu to horizontal - you can still find 'products' and 'contact' links; but if Ons would change the place of tools, it would be a disaster. And actually UI is already responsive, tools will collapse for smaller screens but they are still in same order.

I'm not saying UI is perfect and no enhancement could be done, but there is many more important features to add before fine tuning UI.

Except for feature tree, it needs to be more intuitive to support multiple parts in same studio.

srbh

If we are talking about the UI, may I throw in an observation from a newbie. Today I have been trying to find errors in my Grand Design. Going back through the feature list with and without the rollback bar I managed to move features around in the list order whilst still trying to find the actions associated with my misbehaving parts.
What about numbering the features in the order they are entered & what about highlighting the features involved when rolling over the part in the main window. I think it would help me in my early struggles.

philip_thomas

Hmm, to jump in or not. . . . .   UI design is not my bailiwick, but i do work closely with those for whom this stuff is second nature. My main reason for weighing in is that here at Onshape we are trying to be as transparent as possible and so here goes. . . .  Our founder and Chairman of the Board Jon Hirschtick wanted the UI to be clean, understated and as simple as reasonable. We are not saying it's perfect and is definitely a work in progress.  We have repeatedly nixed color (other than what is minimally required), text (although your can hover over any icon and get two different levels of help) and any sort of animation. One test we use is if you stand 6 feet back from a monitor, the model should be what your eyes are drawn to and NOT the UI.  Sometimes even very small changes are controversial here - adding the '?' help to every dialog was the source of much debate - hitting the main help icon brought up context sensitive help depending on what your were doing or which dialog was open. If that was the case, why do you need a help button on every dialog - nothing but clutter!? In the end, it was felt that not enough people were able to conclude that the help was context sensitive and now we have an icon on every dialog. Why am i telling you all this? The UI is a work in progress. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to raise them here or through the feedback tool. Everyone has different opinions, so try to be specific about why you think you want 'all the icons to animate' or 'be at least 4 colors'. We are building Onshape for you, help us make it amazing!

pete_yodis

Thanks @Philip Thomas  I really appreciate the UI.  Great that there is that much internal "birthing pains" going on.  Reminds me of this...

"Any darn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple." Pete Seeger

tom_helsley

I generally like the UI.  As I have been toying around in Onshape, I have been thinking the feature tree needs some icons.  I also was wondering if we would be able to customize our interface at all (i.e. change the keyboard shortcuts).  Last item, is context-sensitive pop-up tools/options.  I'm a huge proponent of minimizing mouse movement to accelerate the accomplishment tasks.  In SolidWorks for example, I can add relations with a RMC menu, or the shortcut toolbar (love that feature).  I know in Onshape, I can use keyboard keys to accomplish the same thing and some of it is building new habits for new software, but I still thing some pop-ups would help.

BTW, I think I saw that in SolidWorks 2016, you will see the some of the same interface changes:  Colors of icons will be two-tone gray and blue.  Check the SWW day 3 general session video and maybe some blogs.

philip_thomas

@Tom_Helsley - thank you for the feedback, yes this is exactly what we need. There are some lines of thinking that are currently in the product and I would invite your reaction. I am a very high user of Onshape and am also working to reduce mouse miles. These are my best-practices - please comment;
1) keyboard short cuts (just like in SolidWorks) are your friend. They are not customizable currently, but yes, i use them to select features, sketch entities and constraints just as you described. The keyboard shortcut 'cheat sheet' can be 'popped out' and put onto another monitor (or printed) as you are learning them.
2) The right mouse button menu when you are in a feature includes as the top the line item 'exit feature'. This actually ACCEPTS the current feature (go figure) and cuts down on the mouse miles to go back to the feature to accept it.
3) This is more house-keeping, i customize the name of the feature as i create it. This is more useful in Onshape than in other cad products because of the multi-part nature of Onshape part studios. To name the feature on creation, hover the mouse over the name field and you will see a pencil icon, Click on it and edit the name. Here is an example of something I would type 'Sketch::TopProfile::2Caps'. 'Sketch' tells me that the feature is a sketch. 'TopProfile' tells me functionally what is contained in the sketch and '2Caps' tells me that its used to make 2 parts called 'Cap'. (Bonus tip - name the parts as you create them).
4) If you use the ViewCube a lot - did you know that you can move it to any location in the graphics area?
Your thoughts/comments/tips?

andrew_troup

I think about this a lot. I consider it's going to be key to Onshape's enduring success. People come on board for the features, but it's the user experience which keeps them glued to their seats. Steve Jobs realised this, and that single-minded obsession had enough merit that it carried (and continues to carry) some less stellar ideas across the finish line on its sternwave. 

It seems to me that the avoidance of colour has merit for making 'hovering IO' transparent within the model window, but I don't understand wanting to apply that policy to the feature tree. To me that seems more like a fashion dictat than a sober, hard-headed decision.
 
The feature tree (when taken in at a glance) is currently about as uninformative as it would be possible to be, and still be usable.

Given that Part Studios support -- in fact, they positively encourage -- in-context modelling of multiple related parts, the tree will need to convey much more information than hitherto. Paradoxically, at present, the OnS tree is a visual desert, devoid of landmarks.

3dcad

At the moment I would be satisfied for minor changes:
- In feature tree, highlight features used in part when part is selected in Parts.
- In sketch editor, add to RMB menu: Dimension tool and Edit (if clicked over dimension) and Delete (for all sketch entities). I'm familiar with doubleclick and del button, I would prefer RMC.
 
I have tried to name sketches, features and parts - I always end up changing names later and sometimes I put 'Sketch 1' back after struggling to have a decent descriptive name. And there is always Fillets and such with default name mixing with each other..  

Naming interrupts workflow and takes a lot of time, how could we automate the naming?

<crazy_idea>
Maybe sketch name could be generated from geometry inside [sketch::2 circles] or [sketch::rectangle 300x500mm] according to first drawn or main/biggest figure.

What about standard feature names? Hose, bolt, clamp, support, connector etc. repeating features could be saved and have google type search/fill with writing just couple of letters. Part default name could be the name of feature that created the part and sequential number in the end.
</crazy_idea>

tom_helsley

I regularly name features also, however only using basic terms.  Most commonly, I'll name a sketch for layout purposes, then the features only as needed.  3dcad is correct that naming interrupts the design worklfow.  Rather that re-thinking how to name features more efficiently, perhaps some thought should be put into not needing to name features at all.  Think outside the box a bit more.  What if we didn't need features at all?  What if we could completely edit a model without creating a feature trail, but still parametrically drive the model with dimensions etc.?  This idea is taking the conversation in a different direction than it started, so I won't go into further detail here.

Going back to the UI topic,  I do like how hovering over buttons in the toolbar reveals the keyboard shortcuts.  I do like the minimized property panes, however I would prefer not having to move the mouse to them at all.  I'm not talking about having windows pop up - I've been there and done that in the early years of SolidWorks and I welcomed the moves to the property manager, pop-up toolbars, and the RMB.  I would like to see for example, in an extrude feature, provide some icons (or one pull-down) for end conditions and a numeric input box next to the pull arrow.  Add the remaining feature options to the RMC menu.  After the feature is created, when I double-click on it, I want to be able to edit the extrude length, not just the sketch dimensions.  In sketches provide all geometric constraints relevant to the selected entities in an RMC menu.

3dcad

3dcad said:

- In sketch editor, add to RMB menu: Dimension tool and Edit (if clicked over dimension) and Delete (for all sketch entities). I'm familiar with doubleclick and del button, I would prefer RMC.

In addition to RMB menu in sketch mode: Select -tool ie. deselect what ever tool has been selected to be able select entities or drag things. 

Also keyboard shortcut for this would be great.

andrew_troup

Some form of automatic default naming, perhaps along the lines @3dcad suggested, works for me. I would like that name to differentiate between a Solid extrude/revolve and a Surface extrude/revolve, and also protrusion ("boss" is shorter)  vs a cut. Onshape's current feature tree is as inscrutable as a deceased Mafioso.

Furthermore, it uses only one of the four obvious ways it could convey information: language, shape, position, and colour. If further cues like font style, pulsation, rotation (static or dynamic), audio, z-depth, temperature, taste and smell were added, then for sure we would have a sensory overload, but I don't think the addition of shape, indentation and colour is going to tip the typical user over that edge.
(Actually, audio, as an option ... now THERE's an interesting off-the-wall idea ... as you hover over items in the tree, they utter a user-programmable, distinctive sound... shades of Victor Borge's audible punctuation, perhaps!)

@billy in the second post on this thread https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/comment/509/#Comment_509
mocked-up an idea for colouring the entries of the tree to match the colours of the parts.  When collapsed, the text would be replaced by a thick horizontal bar of the same colour. This had a clean simplicity which was appealing. When features of different parts were interleaved (as will happen when modelling in context) the coloured barcodes in different sequences would provide distinctive visual landmarks for navigating a long tree. 

There are lots of ways to enrich what we currently have without distraction or detraction.

I'm relaxed about the tree currently being minimalist, because I think that's a good place to start. I would personally prefer it to stay that way until a *really* good plan has been hatched, so that we can be knocked breathless by something which is not just classic and timeless, but self-evidently, unquestionably, stupendously sublime.

#########

(Note to OnS: particularly with modern, small-pixel hi-res displays, a line or a font needs to be quite thick for its colour to be easily detectable. Lots of males have rather limited red-green differentiation. I personally can barely see the green line of the current mate connectors, but I think it's partly because it's insufficiently garish in hue - I think those three axes need to be pure, bright primary colours. Perhaps if that was too distracting for a large assembly, there could be a global dimmer control for such colour denoters)

andrew_troup

@3dcad asked for 
"- In feature tree, highlight features used in part when part is selected in Parts (list)."

Absolutely. At present, when a feature is selected from the modelling window, that feature is highlighted in the tree, so it's an established interface feature. I'm all for enriching what's already there.

andrew_troup

3dcad said:

In addition to RMB menu in sketch mode: Select -tool ie. deselect what ever tool has been selected to be able select entities or drag things. 

Also keyboard shortcut for this would be great.

Hmm... When I select (say) the rectangle tool, the first RMB menu item becomes "Escape corner rectangle" (nice!) and the shortcut key is (ta daah!) Escape.

I guess they knew what you wanted before you did!

3dcad

Andrew_Troup said:

..

I guess they knew what you wanted before you did!

   I could have bet 5 months of Ons pro subscription cost that it wasn't there in the morning. And suddenly there is also appearing some extra button called ESC in my keyboard.. Life can be amazing!

Sooorrrrryyyy, my bad!